Mani Haghighi is royalty in the Iran's so-called Intellectual community. By being related to a handful of eminent artists, he has acquired a sense of confidence with which he delivers a stew of clumsy story-telling and amateur symbolism, with awkward pandering to Iranian intellects' nostalgia and a stuffy sense of humor. In my humble opinion, this movie is yet another fix for Mr. Haghighi's wounded ego; there, I've said it.
As for the story: days after 1965's assassination of Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour, an exiled Marxist revolutionary hangs himself. The secret police (SAVAK) suspects a link between the two and sends Agent Bobak Hafezi to investigate. Bobak finds himself in a horror-movie cemetery and shipwreck remains of 16-century Irano- Portuguese wars, where he experiences a "macguffin" earthquake, goes rough and employs a sound designer(?) with silence-fetish (who of course works for Director Mani Haghighi's folks) and a stiffly acted seismologist-ish civil engineer to uncover the truth(?) without the agency's knowledge(?). The plot makes no sense, and it's still not the worst thing about the movie. Countless cringe-worthy cameos by politicians and flaunt intellectuals is nothing but embarrassing. They do make the movie look like a documentary; a bluffing, unintelligible documentary.
The movie fails, even as a parody, even in the surrealist context of "anything goes". I give it two stars for its decent cinematography and two for Christophe Rezai's mind-sweeping music. The rest deserves nothing.
As for the story: days after 1965's assassination of Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour, an exiled Marxist revolutionary hangs himself. The secret police (SAVAK) suspects a link between the two and sends Agent Bobak Hafezi to investigate. Bobak finds himself in a horror-movie cemetery and shipwreck remains of 16-century Irano- Portuguese wars, where he experiences a "macguffin" earthquake, goes rough and employs a sound designer(?) with silence-fetish (who of course works for Director Mani Haghighi's folks) and a stiffly acted seismologist-ish civil engineer to uncover the truth(?) without the agency's knowledge(?). The plot makes no sense, and it's still not the worst thing about the movie. Countless cringe-worthy cameos by politicians and flaunt intellectuals is nothing but embarrassing. They do make the movie look like a documentary; a bluffing, unintelligible documentary.
The movie fails, even as a parody, even in the surrealist context of "anything goes". I give it two stars for its decent cinematography and two for Christophe Rezai's mind-sweeping music. The rest deserves nothing.